Yesterday, we attended a Grow the Hope (GTH) house meeting with their Rapid Response team, Organizing for America (OFA 2.0), and the Carrots and Sticks Project. After the meeting everyone decided to stick around and make calls into MA to help elect Martha Coakley in the race for Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat. We took a moment before leaving to talk with Jon Randall, Maryland's 8th district liaison from OFA 2.0, and we put together this video, quickly detailing how to make phone calls online to support Coakley:
This week's Training Tuesday takes us back to Democracy for America's Campaign Academy in Gettysburg, PA 2009. For the last couple weeks we brought you lessons from the Organizing 2.0 conference, and we still have plenty more to come.
Anyways, first things first, a little history on the DFA campaign academy:
Update (12:08 PM): I just saw Secretary of State Matt Dunlap go on WCSH-6 in Portland- he said this morning he expects turnout to be about 35%. Now he says (I'm paraphrasing from my notes) that turnout may well exceed 50% and hit our 2003 off-year record of 50.9%, which bodes well for the No On 1 side, as that means a broader demographic including young people are coming out to vote, although it depends on rural turnout. Good news, but we still have work to do.
Woke up with morning GOTV canvassers knocking on the door of the place where I'm staying in Portland. Great start to the day.
Today's the day we see if it all pays off. We're 0/30 in statewide marriage votes all-time. The only time we've won was Arizona 2006, which was later repealed in 2008. This campaign has been well-executed, and today we leave it all on the field.
Tonight I'll be live-blogging the results from the boiler room here in Portland. You can also follow results via my Twitter feed.
There is one last thing you can do. GOTV from home. The campaign has a Call for Equality tool for virtual phonebanking. Few hours of your time. They have shifts today from 11-1 AM EST, 1-3, 3-5, and 5-8. Sign up here.
I can't reiterate enough how razor-tight things are. Even though things feel good, it can all come apart. I was asked about our chances on the radio last night, and I have to repeat one thing: if turnout is like a normal election off-year, we lose. That means if voters age 18-29 turnout drops through the floor as usual in an off-year election (nothing else on the ballot but a few other ballot measures), and everything else remains constant, we're going down. The Secretary of State today predicted 35% turnout. Weather is clear, low 50s/high 40s all day across the whole state. There's potential to boost our numbers. We have to execute a flawless field program and boost our overall supporter votes through the frickin' roof.
So if you have some time today, Call for Equality. It's the last, and best, thing you can do to win this in Maine.
If we win, Maine will become the first state in the country to pass marriage equality legislation, have it signed by the governor, and then upheld by the people in a vote. It will make history. Help us get our voters to the polls. Let's go.
I heard a report that GOTV poll voter counting tool Houdini is down, but there is an iPhone app that is still working. Here's an explanation of Houdini.
I did some GOTV work with Natasha today, and tomorrow we will be making a bunch of Rice Krispy treats to give to people to help convince them to stay and vote even if the lines are long. The treats will be funded by the $100 I received for the general lection from the Philadelphia Democratic Party. Yes, this is the evil "street money" that I receive twice a year, as part of being a committee person: $100 bucks worth of Rice Krispy Treats to give to voters to stay on the line. Oh, the evils of street money.
In the meantime, I want to make two final activism pleas to Open Left:
Even though it is not reflected in the current totals, the Better Democrats matching money came in today. Take the current totals, add $5,000, and that is actually where we are. This means with one final push of $2,468, we will reach our goal of $75,000 for the page. Can we do it? You guys have been amazing so far, so I have faith that we can. Let's do it!
Second, if you haven't already, there is still time to run a Personal Paid Media campaign. Natasha and I launched our 10th, and final, ad this afternoon. It is targeted at Republican Christopher Lee in the New York 26th:
Over the past week alone, our ten ad campaigns received 48,898 search impressions (we turn off the content network on all ads), and 368 click-throughs. The best performing ad, by far, is our one in Minnesota:
This ad has a click-through rate of 3.93%, triple our click-through rate of any other ad. It feels great to be able to effectively knock on doors of voters in any campaign I wish, and to only reach voters when they are most curious about the campaign for which you are advertising. If you haven't started a personal paid media campaign, get started on one now. If you are already running one, I'd love to hear about it in the comments. And, whether you are just starting one or if you have already started, check out this great guide on how to improve your campaigns.
Rice Krispy treats tomorrow, but tonight let's top off the Better Democrats page, and let's run one more Personal Paid Media campaign. And then, they day after that, we change the world.
This is also an open thread to tell stories about your weekend electoral activism.
While ACORN's record-breaking voter registration campaign - and the partisan attacks which followed - have been much in the news lately, ACORN members and organizers are hard at work conducting extensive Get Out the Vote programs to make sure that ACORN members, new registrants, immigrant citizens, young people, and infrequent voters in low-income and minority communities participate in this historic election. Below the flip are some highlights of our work.
In terms of polling analysis, I feel as though I have morphed into one of the bi-partisan pundit concern trolls that dominate the big media commentariat whenever Democrats have gained the upper hand in our political discourse (calls for bipartisanship were far less common, of course, during the Republican trifecta). Pretty much no matter what the polling situation is, I stick to my constant refrain "the truth is in between."
Well, I am about to start that refrain again, this time when it comes to the dueling likely voter models floating around the polling universe. Nowhere is the discrepancy between likely voter models more pronounced than in the Gallup tracking poll, which publishes two separate likely voter models every day. One likely voter model, the "traditional" model, includes questions about past voting behavior and assumes 60% turnout of the voting age population. The other, "expanded" model does not ask about past voting behavior, and makes no assumptions about national turnout.
Most Democratic-leaning election websites have decided to use the "expanded" model as the daily Gallup tracking poll number, rather than the "traditional" model. This is the case at TPM, Pollster.com, and fivethirtyeight and, it would appear, among most of the commenters I read on Open Left. I haven't taken sides in this argument before, but I actually think it is a mistake to use only the "expanded" likely voter model and discard the traditional one entirely. As I always say, the truth is in between.
Election Day is almost here! And I know that everyone on Open Left wants to do everything possible during these last eight days to help carry Obama over the finish line to victory.
This is such a committed group that I know many of you are already engaged with one of the many great progressive programs that are doing voter outreach and GOTV. But if you're still looking for a fun and effective way to get involved, please come join Progressive Future's Obamathon!
We at Drinking Liberally like to talk -- that's why we do it over beers every week. We think talking is a pretty powerful way to connect to people.
So naturally, we smile when a telephone company figures out yet another way to be an awesome progressive partner.
CREDO is giving its customers free Election Day calling. So, don't worry about burning your minutes as you call everyone you know to remind them to vote, or phonebank with a campaign calling voters, or work in the field and need to check in with fellow canvassers.
It's all free. You could call it, ahem, Talking Liberally.
This is on top of their "Text Out the Vote" plan which allows you to set up text GOTV reminders to friends that will be sent on November 4th. Plus their newly-launched Go Vote which confirms registration and gives you polling location. And their totally rocking voter registration widget.
Oh, also they don't censor pro-choice texting and they didn't help the government spy on you.
In past years, I burned through my minutes in the months leading up to elections, so much so that I invested in bigger plans, earlier evening hours and unlimited texting. I don't know other people's plans for Election Day, but I hope it involves talking -- constantly -- in person, at doors, online, and on the phone.
Survey USA is starting to report crosstabs for early voters in many of their recent state polls. In every state where they have such crosstabs, Obama is ahead by shocking margins. First, Georgia:
Early and absentee voting began in Georgia on 09/22/08. Among the 18% of Georgia voters who tell SurveyUSA they have already voted, Obama leads by 6 points; among those who have not yet voted, McCain leads by 11.
With 18% of the vote in, this crosstab is effectively an "exit poll" showing that Obama is literally winning in Georgia right now. Similarly surprising pro-Obama margins can be seen in several other states, like Iowa:
Among the 14% of Iowa voters who say they have already cast their ballot, Obama leads by a 2:1 margin.
Of the 12% of respondents who tell SurveyUSA they have already voted, Obama leads by 18.
None of the other Survey USA polls released this month included early voting subsets. Still, these numbers are enough to indicate that Obama is clearly over-performing among early voters compared to his standing among all voters. This means that the Obama field campaign is obviously superior to McCain's, and that even if McCain tightens the campaign later on, Obama will already have banked a substantial lead. Early voting is also an excellent protection against the voter suppression tactics Republicans regularly employ.
Obama is winning big across the board right now. Best of all, this lead is not just in polls, but in actual votes.
Update: Survey USA also reports that Jim Martin leads by 4% in the Georgia Senate campaign, among early voters.
Update 2: Also, I should note that I share skepticism of those who think this all sounds like 2004, and as such is too good to be true. However, keep in mind that during the early voting phase in 2004, Kerry never actually led Bush. During early voting in 2008, we all know that Obama is well ahead right now. That, combined with a less than effective McCain ground game (Bush's was excellent, McCain's isn't) makes things very different from 2004.
Update 3: It should be noted that these subsets have very high margins of error. However, that Obama is outperforming his overall numbers in every single one of these subsets makes it highly unlikely that this is just "statistical noise." If it were truly random, than the early voting numbers would be pro-McCain in at least one of the five states listed here. Instead, Obama outperforms in all five.
Update 4: If Obama is ahead by 30% in Iowa with 14% reporting, should we already call the state for Obama? I'm tempted.
Iowa's most prominent pundit, David Yepsen, wrote a piece in the Des Moines Register warning that it would be perilous for the presidential candidates to ignore rural America at their parties' nominating conventions.
His column inspired me to look into what Barack Obama and John McCain are offering voters outside major cities and suburbs. What I found is after the jump.
Barack Obama's campaign held kickoff events in 15 Iowa field offices on Saturday, coinciding with the first statewide canvass of the general election campaign. In addition, the Obama campaign plans to open at least two more field offices in Iowa.
Slightly revised from the version posted at MyDD, thanks to feedback from several thoughtful readers. Note: If Hillary Clinton were the nominee, I would have written a similar diary addressing her volunteers.
This diary is for people planning to volunteer for Barack Obama's presidential campaign this summer and fall. My goal is to help you be more effective in communicating with voters like me, who don't care for Obama.
I know that the Obama campaign has scripts and training sessions for its volunteers, and those worked well in the primaries.
Now you have to reach out to Democrats who weren't buying what Obama was selling in the primaries. It seems to me that many Obama supporters respond in a counter-productive way when they encounter people who are not sold on the candidate.
In this diary, I will offer two basic principles to guide your conversations with non-supporters.
Then I will cover types of comments you may hear from resistant Democrats when you are doing GOTV for Obama. Those are all based on things I have heard people say (not comments I have read on blogs).
I will give examples of what I consider ineffective and constructive responses to those comments.
Follow me after the jump if you care to hear more.
"Don't get me wrong," said David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager and Rospars's boss, "the Internet is a powerful organizing and fundraising tool, and it's getting more and more important every day, but it's still not the persuasion and message tool that TV is."
Though I criticized him at the time, I believe Plouffe was correct. Obama's speech on Wright was perhaps a singular messaging moment for the internet, and the pushback on the gas tax came from the internet. But by and large, the messaging from Obama has been TV messaging, and it has worked. Plouffe was correct about the internet's impact on field, as I noted at the time.
I have a new article at the Democratic Strategist that focuses on the choice between mobilizing base voters and targeting swing voters. It is called Swing Voters and Swing Activists. Here is the introduction:
In any discussion of "swing voters," who are typically grouped by demographics or psychographics, it is first important to differentiate themselves from "swing states" in presidential elections. "Swing states" are the perhaps a dozen or so states with partisan voting tendencies in presidential elections that most closely mirror national partisan voting tendencies. In close presidential elections, "swing states" are the states that could narrowly vote for the nominee of either major party no matter who wins the national popular vote. As such, they determine the winner of the Electoral College, and are thus rightfully termed "swing" states.
"Swing voters," or swing voting demographics, are typically defined as demographic groups with partisan voting patterns that closely mirror those of the national electorate as a whole. But a moment's reflection should remind us that swing voters are not analogous to swing states. Eking out a narrow victory among such closely-divided groups as Catholics or self-identified "moderates" is meaningless unless it contributes to victory in swing states. The proper goal in appealing to swing voters-and for that matter, all voters-is to outperform historic partisan performance in as many demographic groups as possible, and by as much as possible, thus winning "swing states."
It is in this fundamental sense that every voting demographic is a swing voter demographic, and the ancient dichotomy between swing and base voter strategies is largely a false choice.
Read the whole thing, which I think is pretty good. My basic premise is that campaigns do not have to choose between two different types of voters, but instead must navigate between generating resources from their activist base, and spending resources to target voters. Hence, swing activists and swing voters.
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